We woke up early to get to Hanoi airport to catch our flight to Bangkok. We arrived at 10am and went straight over to the train station to see how much a sleeper train to Chiang Mai was. 15 pound each, we bought a bed for the night and the 13 hour train ride would be easier than getting a bus. We didn't leave until 7pm and it was too early to wait at the airport station. We got the train from Bangkok to allow us to spend 6 hours in the city centre. Jake went back and asked for a ticket to Bangkok city centre for two people. It's an hours train ride so he was expecting to pay at least a 5er. The lady asked for 10 baht. Jake thought he made a mistake so asked her again. The lady looked at him like he was an idiot and repeated 10 baht! That 20p for both of us! After the afternoon in the centre we got on the train, had some food, and then our seats transformed into bunk bends. The bottom bunk was bigger than a single and the top was about half the size. I don't think it will take Einstein to work out who was where!!!!!!!

When we arrived in Chiang Mai at 8 we didn't have any accommodation, at the train station we asked around - we got a free taxi to go and look at two different places owned by the same owner. We chose the 2nd one which was £10 a night with a swimming pool and right in the centre of everything. The last week we didn't sleep much at all. We went from hue at 6am to the caves, then a sleeper bus, then a night out before having to wake up at 5 for halong bay, 3 days of drinking with limited sleep to an early flight and then a sleeper train. We were both struggling and after catching up on our beauty sleep we headed down to the Sunday markets. We expected a street with a few stalls and he odd food vendor. Completely wrong! 4 streets get closed off and it's around a mile long full of the same stuff so it got a little repetitive. The street is that busy your rubbing shoulders with everyone, after a hour we had enough and headed back empty handed for a early night before a big day tomorrow.

As we all know elephants are a big love of Anne-Marie's and we've both waited 3 months to visit one of the best sanctuaries to spend the day with the beautiful animal. These elephants have been rescued from more touristy areas where they were badly treated. We were due to be picked up between 8-8:45. 8:43 the guide called big turned up. We both thought we're always last to be picked up. Usually the mini bus is full when this happens. But there was no one in there. So then we both though 'great start we're running so late. 10 minutes went by and we hadn't picked anyone else up and we had got on the main highway. We asked how many people were there for big to reply 2. Just us! We had the day with all the elephants by ourselves! Big explained the day and we stopped at a local market for him to buy our lunch.

We arrived and met the elephants. There are 10 all together and then it was time to get change into our mahout uniform. We gave the elephants their morning feed and learnt how to talk to them. We learnt the command for the elephants to move their trunk up so we could pop the sugar cane into the elephants mouth. Jakes elephant for the day was called kouka. Anne Marie had a mum and daughter. The baby was two years old and called alium and the mums name was something we couldn't pronounce. We started the day by learning how to get on the elephant. We learnt the command for them to bow for us to climb up there trunk to get on their necks. The necks are the strongest part and the best place to sit. Not on their backs on the chairs!! Once we done this and we're comfortable it was a quick practice ride. Big said that it was lunch time and normally he drives us in the jeep but because it was only the two of us we got to ride the elephants up to have lunch. It was a 30 minute ride up. Being in control of an elephants was an amazing feeling. Talking to it to tell them where you wanted to go was something else. The mahouts were close but we're behind chatting and intervened if they needed too. Especially with the baby who was, well, like a two year old would be. Jakes was greedy and would stop at every opportunity to eat.

When we got back to the camp, lunch was served. We were expecting the elephants to be tied up but they weren't. The were let loose in the grass area opposite and we watch them graze and cool themselves down. Anne-Maries elephant cooled herself down with Anne Marie still on top getting her soaked - was very funny and so good to watch. Normally Anne-Marie would scream at anything wet being thrown at her but she say on top and loved every minute of it!

After lunch we had an hours trek down, passed where we started and then into the river to wash our elephants. This was the highlight of the trip for us. Bathing, cuddling and playing with an animal that weight 2,500kg! Once again little alium was naughty. She kept grabbing our legs with her trunk to play with us. The best thing was to see how much love the elephants and mahouts had for each other. Especially big with Alium who put her front legs on his shoulders and cuddled him with her trunk. During the end Alium was playing with Jake, got excited and whacked him with her trunk, knocking him completely off his feet and under the water. Cut and bleeding he got up to find her running at him for more. Anne Marie ran out the water scared and Jake just pushed her away. We thought big would have been worried but he was in stitches!

After this it was time to ride back to the start where we fed them once more before saying our goodbyes. I don't think we will ever experience anything quite that good again in our lives. It was an incredible day from start to finish and so good to see how the elephants were loved and treated.

That night we went to the night bazaar. This was another market that was open every night. We went a bit mad with the presents. I think because we were in such a good mood from the elephants! We said strictly shop for presents but as you can imagine Anne Marie got a few things for herself- shock. After shopping we went back to the food place. There were food stalls scattered around like you would see at a festival and hay bales in the middle for us to sit, eat and meet people.

The next day day we went to see jakes favourite animal - the tiger. We were a bit apprehensive about this because we've been told they were drugged although everyone we spoke to in Chiang Mai said there not. First of all we walked around to see if they were. It was clear as soon as we got there they weren't and they had just been raised by humans in captivity. The white tiger is Jakes favourite so we paid to go in the cage with two 7 month old tigers. One white and one yellow. Touching a tiger was again a brilliant experience although a little more scary than the elephants. Especially when the guy said the white one is very naughty and we have to be careful and move very slowly. We had 15 minutes with the Tigers. We got to move logs on a string for them to play with and it was unreal! We then thought that wasn't a enough and wanted to go in with the biggest tiger in the park. These tigers were only two but bloody huge!!! The trainers said that these wouldn't be bothered by us at all and we could really cuddle them, again, and I know we've said it throughout this blog but cuddling an animal that can kill you in a second is an experience we will never forget. Then it was back to Chiang Mai for, yep you've guessed it, more shopping, street food and drinks.

So far we've enjoyed the north of Thailand. It seems much more of how we imagined Thailand, although we absolutely loved the south islands and it's beautiful, picturesque scenery there were a few laaaaads' that are there for a two week bender.